Facilities Data Platform

Real-time data from real-world facilities

SOWC Data provides the ability to capture, analyze, and visualize real-time climatic and watershed data in support of new software, monitoring technology and research applications.

Focused on the gathering of real-time sensor data and the analysis of massive amounts of information, the SOWC data platform is available to support new products, technologies and research applications for the water industry and academic researchers.

Through a partnership with IBM, the SOWC data platform has access to powerful analytical software and hardware, uniquely positioning SOWC to work with clients and partners to develop new and innovative applications.

SOWC’s Watershed Node, led by the University of Waterloo, has installed the instrumentation that acts as the backbone for ‘smart watershed’ capacity. A central component of this capacity is a state-of-the-art watershed monitoring system developed in the Alder Creek Watershed, a rapidly urbanizing area within the Regional Municipality of Waterloo.

Within the Alder Creek watershed, which covers an area of approximately 80 square kilometers, SOWC has installed seven complete weather stations designed to collect spatially disperse climatic data, networks of groundwater monitoring wells and soil moisture probes to monitor the subsurface, and seven surface water monitoring stations that track stream flow and water quality. A total of 120 sensors collect and transmit over 150 data points every 15 minutes through wireless telemetry to a central recording location.